The Veil
by SerenityBlaidd
Summary: Remus returns to The Veil to try and make sure that Sirius is actually dead and at peace, and not trapped forever behind it. (RL/SB)*this is a work in progress that I will edit up into chapters once I have finished editing the second half*


Remus Lupin was in the Death Chamber in the Department of Mysteries. Obviously he was not supposed to be there, but he didn't care. He rushed down the rows of steep bench like steps, into the sunken room and climbed quickly onto the dais, aware that he may be stopped at any moment. He hadn't risked so much to be dragged away now.

.

The black veil, that hung in the arch, fluttered as he disturbed it. In fact it just fluttered regardless of his movements. It never stopped. And Remus could hear the whisper of voices. As the minutes ticked by, even in the otherwise silent room, he could make out no discernable words. And he couldn't hear _Sirius_.

.

He adjusted his position, resting against the stone arch, aware that he constantly crept closer, closer, and was likely to touch it, if he didn't anchor himself to something solid. The voices whispered. The veil rippled and fluttered.

.

"…Sirius?" Remus said, finally. It was a hoarse and pathetic whimper, astonishingly loud in the empty room. The curtain rippled, the voices whispered on. He let go of the archway and a moment later his hand was burnt by a biting coldness, and he realised he had touched the cloth.

.

Hand snapped away, he tried to breath calmly. Now he knew for certain that the curtain wasn't solid. It hadn't felt of anything at all. It wasn't cloth. A film of rippling darkness, but nothing solid at all. And Sirius was on the other side of it. And the voices whispered. Voices that whispered, were not dead. Voices that whispered, were trapped.

.

Remus put his hand against the blackness again, feeling the insubstantial cold, the nothingness; like a pocket of icy air, but colder, infinitely colder. "…_Sirius_?" He said again, clearing his voice and raising it far from a whisper. "_Sirius!_" He said. "_Sirius, it's me. Sirius, can you hear me_…?"

.

The voices whispered, unchanged. The veil flickered and billowed. The cold in his hand suddenly started to burn. Pulling it back he saw the thick whiteness of his skin, damaged by the biting coldness.

.

Sirius had always been cold after Azkaban. Too thin; sitting too still, in that horrible house, never able to get rid of the coldness inside. The veil reminded Remus of the Dementors. He resisted the urge to plunge through it and find Sirius, or at least die and not have to think about it anymore.

.

"_Lupin!_" A sharp but distant voice said. A moment later the back of Remus's robes was snatched and he fell backwards onto the dais. He had not been resisting. He had been stepping into the veil. "…Ye'r idiot." The voice said. Without bothering to look, Remus knew who it was and part of him was glad. Not glad that it wasn't Auror's come to arrest him. He was glad that it was Sirius's unlovable friend, Dung.

.

"What are you _doing_ here?" Remus snapped, pulling himself upright and brushing down his robes. Dung grinned at him, taking a mouthful from a half-bottle of Firewhiskey. "And how did you get here?" He added, because it had been hard, very hard, for Remus. His wife was an Auror, and he had claimed to be visiting her, and he'd had to use memory charms and a disillusionment spell. Dung shrugged.

"18th of June." He said in explanation and took another mouthful of Firewhiskey.

.

His breath was not pleasant and Remus's nose wrinkled in distaste. "Want some?" Dung suggested, offering the bottle.

"No. I don't." Remus told him, politely. What he wanted was for Dung to go away. Hadn't he wanted him here, a minute ago? Remus marvelled at himself.

.

"I just saved your life." Dung observed, conversationally.

"I didn't want you to." Remus said. Dung didn't say anything. He took another mouthful of Firewhiskey, letting Remus consider what a despicable and essentially untrue sentiment that was, seeing as he had a pregnant wife, and was now the only adult other than the overburdened Weasleys that Harry could depend on.

.

"…I didn't come here to kill myself." Remus clarified finally.

"Oh good." Dung said, voice heavy with a sarcasm that Remus was surprised his drunken brain was capable of.

"I'm here," Remus explained, calmly. "To try and understand The Veil… You can hear voices." He turned desperately back to it, a hand rising to tangle in his hair. "…Why did you come?" He demanded, holding onto the solid arch again, to avoid drifting too close.

"Because it's the 18th June." Dung said, as if that was an explanation. "…I came last year as well." How_!?_ Remus thought again. _How did Dung just wander down here? When it had required so much planning and effort, for him?_

.

"Have a drink." Dung offered, again. Remus's eyes narrowed irritably as he frowned at the veil in front of him. It was still fluttering. "…Right." Dung said, finally. It was the change in his voice Remus noticed, because he wasn't paying attention to Dung's words.

.

Dung's used the other side of the archway to kneel down, looking at the veil rippling keenly in front of him. Then a single tear escaped one of his red rimmed eyes and slid to his jaw. It splashed onto the cold stone of the dais. Shock robbed Remus of the decency to look away, and he watched tears spilling down the other man's cheeks. Dung didn't speak. He took another mouthful of Firewhiskey with a trembling hand, peering at The Veil. One single tear was caught on his pale ginger eyelashes. It fell away as he blinked.

.

"…I still miss yer." He said, quietly. He was talking to The Veil. Remus just stood, trapped beside him on the dais; silent and slightly appalled. "I miss yer, Sirius, and… I hope yer somewhere better than this shitty world. And better than ya folk's pissing house. I bloody miss yer, Sirius."

.

He closed his eyes, causing more tears to streak his sallow freckled cheeks, lips pressed together, then parted to take another hurried mouthful of Firewhiskey. He sniffed, and then he lent forward and thrust the mouth of the bottle through the icy blackness, so that the Firewhiskey splashed onto the far side of the dais.

.

"…Do you want a minute alone?" Remus suggested, now vastly too late. Dung ignored him, taking another mouthful before he stood up. He didn't bother to wipe his face. He was, as usual, quite drunk. He glanced up at Remus's shocked expression and sighed, a shaking sigh. After a moment he offered Remus the bottle again. Remus took it, tilting it in silent toast to the archway before swallowing a burning mouthful. He did not let himself cry. It had been two years, today. He was not going to do that.

.

"…So you' just come to study it, did yer?" Dung asked, sounding remarkably recovered. Remus pulled his attention back to the room and nodded.

"Yes." He said. "I think…" He sighed. He sounded like a teacher, trying to explain something he knew nothing about to a very simpleminded student. Ironically. "I've read; researched it. There isn't much information."

"Fascinatin'" Dung said, drily.

"You can hear whispering." Remus pointed out. "_Can you hear whispering?"_

"Course I can." Dung said.

"Well, not everyone can." Remus informed him. "And It's not because… it's not Sirius. I'm sure I can hear many voices.

"I think there are loads of people in there." Dung said.

"They're dead." Remus said, sharply. This, this was what frightened him. _Please, let Sirius be dead, not trapped somewhere, not forever._

"They're not dead." Dung said, at once. He sounded bloody sure, for someone who hadn't read one scrap of the sparse information that existed on The Veil.

.

Remus sighed. "You don't know anything about it." He informed Dung, honestly. "And there is scarce written record that survives. It's as old as The Ministry itself."

"If you say so." Dung shrugged. "But he's not dead. They're all alive in there."

"No… They're not." Remus said, his voice rather betraying how much this possibility frightened him.

.

"They are." Dung said. "You can put your hand in and touch them."

"No, you can't." Remus said.

"Yeah, you can." Dung said, with a coarse laugh. "I have."

"No, you haven't." Remus said. "You're drunk." He pointed out, sharply. "And you're wrong… You put the bottle through." Remus added, quite annoyed. "And it came out the other side. Look at the dais, Dung. It's wet with Firewhiskey."

.

Dung didn't say anything, sipping the hot liquid. Remus knelt down in front of the veil again, with Dung standing over him. He rolled up his sleeve and pushed his hand into the icy cold of The Veil.

.

"See?" Dung said, watching him pull it back. Remus had angled himself so he could peer round The Veil as he put his hand into it. Dung was right. His hand did not poke out the other side of the black veil, as the bottle had done. it had vanished into the icy coldness.

.

They sat in silence for a moment. "…What about the bottle?" Remus said, finally.

"It doesn't go in." Dung told him, with a shrug. "My hand goes through and the bottle don't." He got up and carefully passed the bottle through the black veil so Remus could see the top of it jutting out of the far side of the curtain. He chuckled at Remus's surprise. "Looks like your books weren't that useful, Lupin." He scoffed. Remus ignored it, studying The Veil intently. Dung poked the bottle further into the black curtain, but it didn't affect it at all. It didn't even move it of change how much it fluttered.

.

Dung poked Remus's shoulder, gesturing him to look. And then he pushed the hand holding the bottle right into the black veil. At once the bottle clattered to the floor on the far side of the veil. "Do that again." Remus urged him, moving so he could see the back of the veil.

"It's too cold." Dung stated, retrieving the bottle and again poking it slowly through the black veil. Remus watched carefully as the bottle came through the back of The Veil, but Dung's hand vanished _into_ the veil, until he was no longer holding the bottle and it again fell onto the dais.

.

_"Sirius!"_ Remus shouted. "_Sirius!"_ Holding the side of the arch as he yelled. _"Sirius!"_ He screamed, sending the echo, to bounce earsplittingly loudly around the subterranean chamber.

.

"…He doesn't answer yer." Dung offered helpfully, when Remus had shouted himself hoarse. He peered irritably down the neck of the empty bottle. Remus closed his eyes.

.

"…_Did you say you could touch them_?" He said, suddenly. Dung nodded.

"I told yer, they're alive. 'E's still alive somewhere."

"_Where_!?" Remus said, angrily.

.

He swept his fringe out of his eyes and pushed his hand into the icy veil. "In there." Dung offered, indicating it. It was painfully cold. Muscles clenching, physical pain beginning rapidly.

"You touched Sirius's hand?!" Remus said, feeling about in the nothingness inside The Veil.

.

Grimacing at the pain, Remus pulled his hand back. It was white as bone, flushing a garish and very painful red, as the blood returned to it. "Yes." Dung said, simply.

"_You touched Sirius's hand_?" Remus said, thrusting his own aching hand back into The Veil. Dung watched him, in silence.

.

Cursing, Remus brought his hand back out again. The whiteness remained longer. The blood did not rush back into his fingers. The pain was intense. "_When did you touch his hand_?" He demanded, angrily. "A year ago? And you didn't say anything!?"

"You were busy getting married." Dung pointed out. "Didn't think I'd be very welcome round your house, what with your hormonal wife wanting to kill me."

"He can't be alive!" Remus cried. "For two years, trapped… somewhere! He can't!"

"Don't know, Remus." Dung shrugged. "You're the expert, remember. "

"He's dead." Remus added. _Sirius trapped, alive, in the icy blackness for two years, and probably for eternity_. It was horrific

.

_Sirius alive and reachable… That was… That was…_ Again Remus thrust his hand through the black veil. It was nothing like cloth. His hand sunk straight through it, vanishing into somewhere else. It hurt a lot. It was colder than ice. Dung watched him.

.

"…Can you feel anything?" He asked, conversationally.

"No." Remus snapped, teeth gritted. "It feels cold."

"Yeah. Just a bit!" Dung grinned, he tried to take a swig from the empty bottle and sighed.

"…_Shit._" Remus snarled, yanking his hand out again and thrusting it under his clothes; holding it against his warm stomach.

.

"So… yeah." Dung said. "Sometimes you can feel them."

"Them? The people?"

"Yeah." Dung nodded. "They're there."

"Sirius is there?" Remus asked, knowing it sounded ridiculous.

"Yeah, he's there." Dung said, scratching his horrible ratty hair. "…I know what his hands feel like." Remus hesitated, considering if it was actually possible to distinguish Sirius's hands from other peoples. By sight, for certain. Remus could still picture Sirius's hands exactly, pale and long fingered. But blindly?

.

It was pointless. There were no hands in the veil, only icy nothingness. There was nothing there.

.

Swapping sides, he thrust his left hand up to the elbow, feeling the nothingness, and then his hand hit something solid.

"Told yer." Dung said, amused. Remus ignored him, cautiously feeling again.

.

He couldn't see anything. His hand vanished, like it might into a pool of ink. If it wasn't for the icy cold of the place inside, he would believe he was groping about in the air ion the other side of the dais.

.

He hit something again. This time he didn't yank his hand away, trying to feel what this was, with his numb fingers. It was actually a horrible and frightening sensation. Whatever it was, he was sure it was not Sirius. Not any part of him. It was, he thought, a torso. A bare chest and a large barrelled tummy. It was so cold he couldn't feel properly. A moment later a hand clamped over his wrist and yanked him, pitching him face first, at The Veil.

.

He snatched the side of the arch. The icy blackness licked at his face, as he arched his neck, jerking away, struggling to get his hand free of the vicelike grip inside.

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Dung, eventually, got a grip on his robes and helped him scramble to the edge of the dais. "…_See_." He said.

.

"…_Was it him_?" He added.

"_No_!" Remus said. _Although… There was no way of knowing_. "…I don't know." He admitted.

"He is in there." Dung assured him. "He fell through. If he isn't in there, where's his body?"

.

"I know he fell through." Remus growled, angrily. "I watched him… I know he fell through." His hands were both stinging, his right arm scarlet to the elbow, as circulation returned, his left still mostly white and numb.

.

"What's it like?" Dung asked. Remus closed his eyes, forcing his face into some semblance of calm.

"I'm sorry?" He asked. "What is what like?" Dung gestured at The Veil with his empty bottle.

"What's it like?" He said again. "In yer books. Is it like a cavern, or the same?"

"_What?_" Remus said again.

"…What's it like?" Dung asked. "In yer books, what does it say is it like, where 'e is? It feels big… Not like a room… More like outside."

.

Remus tried to clear his mind of the stupidity of this. "Well obviously," He pointed out. "_No one knows._"

"It feels airy." Dung said, helpfully. Remus closed his eyes, trying very hard to block this out and think.

.

_How could Sirius be_ alive? Remus had promised, _sworn_, to Sirius, that he would kill him, before he let them take him back to Azkaban. The thought of Sirius trapped somewhere more horrific, neither dead or alive for eternity… Two years was… How long had those years felt?

.

"It's good, init?" Dung said, behind him. Remus closed his eyes tighter. "Maybe he's happy now." He added.

"Why would he be happy!?" Remus screamed. His voice bounced off all four walls, mixing with wordless snarls of frustration.

.

"_Shut the hell up, Lupin._" Dung warned him, watching the door in the wall above them anxiously, as he shook Remus's shoulder.

"…Get off me." Remus shoved him away, going back to The Veil and thrusting his throbbing hand back through it, clenching his teeth against the sting.

.

Straight into something. Something solid made his knuckles crunch as his fingers buckles. Closing his eyes Remus flailed blindly, trying to find what he'd hit.

.

He brushed against something, it was a hand. Not a dead hand, or a wrist grabbing hand. It was other fingers, feeling his own cold numb fingers, carefully… searchingly.

.

It hurt so much. It was so cold he could barely feel anything. "…Do you think it's actually cold?" Dung asked behind him.

"What!?" Remus hissed through his clenched teeth. Dung chuckled.

"Do yer think it's actually that cold." He said again. "Because they'd all be frozen solid, if it was."

"Oh… That's true." Remus hissed, trying to breathe through the pain and not withdraw his hand from the clumsy fingers, brushing his own.

.

.

Later that evening, Remus sat in silence, in front of a crackling fire. His hands, especially the right one, showed actual damage from the extremely low temperature. Is finger tips and palm stung as he lifted his mug to take a mouthful of tea.

.

Across the room Tonk's flashed him an icy glare. She, not being a stupid woman, had caught him and Dung in The Death Chamber. As was her nature, she'd been more interested in attacking Dung for getting Moody killed, than in what he was doing, although she had been kind enough to convince the court not to have him thrown in Azkaban.

.

It would be harder to get back to The Veil now. He could do with finding Dung and hearing how he'd got in there, twice.

.

Tonks blew a hissy breath between her teeth, and scribbled something on the document in front of her. Remus ignored it, taking out a parchment of his own and making quick scribbled notes over it.

.

Dung had been right, bizarrely, about the cold. If it was actually that cold on the far side of the veil, the very blood in those bodies should be frozen solid. He noted this on the paper, noting internally, that his brain coped much better with thinking about the 'people' through The Veil, than about Sirius, trapped behind it, in icy blackness.

.

Is it icy? He pondered on the parchment. Is it black? Maybe the other side of The Veil is a mirror image to the Death Chamber, like in Alice Through The Looking Glass? Maybe there is a whole vast world on the other side of The Veil, with sunlight and warmth, and it is only the passing through The Veil, which could be some sort of tear? Causes the icy cold.

.

Why does the bottle not go into The Veil? Why only hands. And Sirius. Did Sirius's clothes go into The Veil? Remus didn't know. The Auror's had sealed off the Death Chamber and locked down the Ministry after the fight between Albus and Voldemort. There had been no body to bury, but there could have been clothes.

.

He thought again about his numb hands feeling that unfamiliar human torso, solid and cold, the hard swollen belly, and the hand clamping around his wrist.

.

He had felt no clothes. Is there a jumble of cold naked people behind The Veil? If there was a whole world as big as their own, behind The Veil, wouldn't there be clothes available? If there was a whole world of space, why would so many people be clustered around The Veil? There were at least two people in arms reach; the potbellied man and a woman, it had been a woman's hand that had felt carefully over his own… Could he recognise Sirius's hands by feel alone? He glanced over at Tonks, writing away, wondering if he could distinguish her hands from any others.

.

"…_Is there a jumble of cold naked people?_" Tonks read sharply, making him jump. "That's a job application, is it, Lupin?"

"Yes." Remus said. "Do you think I'll get an interview this time?" Tonks tried very hard not to laugh.

"Apply for some jobs." She told him. "No one feels happy stuck in the house all day."

"Just clearing my mind." Remus shrugged.

"What's that?" Tonks asked. "You're sorry you came and made a big scene in my place of work?"

"That to." Remus agreed.

"You're in a good mood." Tonks said, suspiciously.

"No. I'm not." Remus said, honestly. There was nothing good about this. It was not good that Sirius was alive. It was terrible. This was terrible.

.

"Do not tug at your hair!" Tonks said, snatching his hands out of his hair. "It makes you look deranged, Lupin."

"What happened to Dung?" He asked.

"Arrested. As you should have been." She said, tartly. So he wouldn't be able to ask Dung how he'd got through The Ministry so easily. Unless it hadn't been easy?

.

Remus woke with a start. It was just after midnight. In his dreams he'd been groping about in the icy blackness again, finding that potbellied man and accidentally thrusting his hands into the man's naked crotch. He had woken with an unpleasant jolt, and sat up, drinking some water and watching his wife sleeping.

.

"Tonks." He gave her a gentle shake.

"I need my sleep, Lupin." She warned him, clearly not very asleep at all. "Pregnant with your child, remember.

"Of course. I just wondered… Did they find any of Sirius's clothes?"

"…What?"

"When he fell through The Veil. There was no body. Were there clothes?"

"…What?" Tonks sighed heavily and groped around to find one of his hands. "Love." She said, as nicely as she could manage. "It's the middle of the night. I know you loved him, I loved him too, but flowers, or lighting a candle in a church, these are nice ways to remember someone on the anniversary of their death, not breaking and entering, in The Department of Mysteries."

"Where else would I put the flowers?" Remus asked. Tonks growled, but awkwardly shifted to give him a peck on the cheek.

"It'll feel better tomorrow, love." She assured him, and yanked the duvet, to roll up in.

.

"_There._" Tonks placed a puffy brown parcel on the table in front of him. It was wrapped in mustard yellow paper and tied with a green string. A parcel tag was stamped with the Ministry logo and someone had written. Property of Harry James Potter, to be returned only if requested. "You were right." Tonks told him, pulling out a seat opposite him. "What on earth made you think they'd have Sirius's clothes?"

"That's what this is?" Remus asked, taking his hands off the package at once.

"Yes." Tonks said. "What did you think? An early Birthday present? They belong to Harry and I said he'd asked for them. I lied, for you."

"Thank you." Remus said. Tonks nodded. She detested lies.

.

He didn't need to open the parcel anyway. He could send it on to Harry unopened; or could have, if he'd know where Harry was. As he didn't, he would have to hang onto it. He put the parcel in his wardrobe, at the very back.

.

He didn't open it until midday, carefully unfolding Sirius's clothes, seeing each had been identified with a parcel tag.

.

Sirius had fallen through The Veil, but cloth and metal hadn't. Sirius's signet ring was here, and Remus imagined it falling like the bottle in Dung's hand, as the black film had separated it from Sirius's flesh, taking the living man inside, and rejecting the lifeless metal and stone.

.

He told the security guard he was vising Tonks, in the Auror office. It was a different guard, who only checked his name and didn't question it. He didn't care about the trouble it was going to cause. He got in the lift, confounded an Unspeakable that questioned his entry into The Department of Mysteries, and went back to The Veil.

.

"_Sirius!?_" He shouted, as loudly as he could, into the fluttering black film. "_Sirius!?_" His voice echoed back at him, but it didn't feel like it was penetrating The Veil.

.

He put Sirius's ring on his finger and passed his hand into The Veil. With a melodic ting the heavy ring dropped onto the stone dais and Remus removed his hand from the coldness.

.

He picked the ring up, pondering why the metal felt so hot, until he realised it was only his hand that was still icy cold.

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Clasping the ring tightly in his fist, completely surrounded by his flesh, he slid his hand back into The Veil. The ring tinkled onto the stone on the far side of the dais. He could vaguely feel it vanishing, from under his finger pads.

.

He jumped as his knuckles knocked something solid, inside The Veil. Holding the arch, in case his wrist was snatched again, he left his hand where it was; noticing the cold less, more frustrated by the numbness it caused. He opened his now empty fist, feeling for whatever he'd touched. A moment later other fingers banged against him. Remus closed his eyes, feeling over them, trying to tell if they belonged to the same woman, or girl, who'd felt over his hand the day before. He could feel her finger tips moving carefully over the scars on the back of his hand, feeling around his wrist. Eyes still closed he moved his hand up her bare arm, feeling a very real elbow and then shoulder, clumsily touching her neck and then a real face, and short, very short, hair.

.

He jumped as a hand clamped around his arm. Realising he was already up to his bicep into The Veil, he tried hard to pull back, but the grip was too strong, holding him there, as more hands brushed clumsy, scratchy, tickling, over his icy arm.

.

He had a foot and an arm braced against the crumbling side of the arch, but that didn't mean he couldn't easily be tugged through sideways. His right leg searched for a foothold on the smooth stone dais, as he tried to wrestle his arm free. And then he froze.

.

Beneath his fingers he could feel Sirius. And yes, even with numb hands, he knew what Sirius felt like. Hands were still clamped around his bicep and wrist, but under his fingers was Sirius, his face, his hair. _He could feel Sirius's face, and his tangled hair._ He let go of the archway altogether, thrusting his other hand into the sharp cold, accidentally punching Sirius's cheek as he tried to find his face. His number right hand still gripping into Sirius's matted hair. _He had found Sirius._

It was so cold. Sirius was so still, beneath his searching fingers. Eyes closed, Remus felt over Sirius's mouth, searching for proof that he was actually alive. And he was. Sirius's lips were moving. Whether he was speaking or kissing the tips of Remus' fingers he could not tell.

.

The hand dropped his bicep, it was Sirius' hand, it interlocked fingers with his. Sirius' fingers. Sirius' other hand dropped his wrist and felt the scars across his knuckles. Sirius's lips moved beneath his fingers.

.

A moment later Tonks ripped him backwards, by his robes and his hair, screeching in angry terror before clenching a fist and punching him in the face.

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"…How dare you do this to me!?..." She was shouting. "…Two days on the trot!... So illegal! …My job! My reputation! ...The most selfish man I have ever met!"

.

Remus ignored her, walking around The Veil and trying to pick Sirius's ring from where it had fallen. It was impossible. His hands were blue white, with cold, and completely numb.

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In her anger, Tonks booted the ring off the dais, and it spun across the Death Chamber, tinkling against the stone floor, and vanished into the shadows of the bench like steps.

.

"You have to be better than this!" She added, hissing crossly before jumping off the dais to retrieve the ring. "We're having a baby and you're playing Russian Roulette with the Death Chamber! …Russian Roulette, Remus! Shall I kill myself!? Shall I not?! …_Arsehole_!"

.

Remus watched her, feeling beneath the bench for the ring, and knelt back down, pushing his now quite painless hand back through The Veil, up to his shoulder.

.

Feeling blindly, he snatched hold of a hand, but abruptly realised it was not Sirius at all. He tried to get it out of the way, to search again, but suddenly The Veil seemed to be filled with hands and arms, and sometimes big hairy heads, and nothing of Sirius.

.

He drew his wand, levelling it on his wife's face as she moved to jump back on the dais. He kept his eyes open, watching her, as he tried to pull his hand away from the fingers that reached and groped around his arm. Searching blindly, with little hope of recognising Sirius if he touched him.

.

He couldn't feel the cold. He could feel very little now. If one of those clumsy hands got a grip on him, he was actually going to be pulled into The Veil.

.

Then a hand did get a grip, and he didn't know if it was Sirius or not, only that it was pulling him in. Other fingers were scrabbling against his skin, scratching and just before he was pulled through, the hand tugging him was wrenched loose and those scratching fingers pushed him back, stopping him falling in.

.

"…What the hell are you doing?" Tonks hissed at him. She jumped back onto the dais, taking his bone white arm and examining it. He couldn't feel her fingers at all. "… 's" She concluded. "Right now. I'll have to explain to my team."

.

He said he'd been hit with an unknown hex. The healer said it was a freezing spell. She knew someone who'd lost the tips of their fingers to it. Tonks sat stonily beside him, listening to him lying, and the healer chatting, twisting Sirius's signet ring over and over in her small fingers.

.

Tonks had short neat nails. Not like the woman on the other side of The Veil. She had long scratchy nails. There were scratches on his arm where she'd prised that grabbing hand off him. He imagined it had belonged to the potbellied man, but there had suddenly seemed to be hundreds of people. He didn't think it was Sirius. Sirius wouldn't have tried to pull him through The Veil… Unless there was something good on the other side of it. Maybe this was proof that Sirius was somewhere good?

.

Maybe it was proof that Sirius was mad? Mad and trapped somewhere terrible… An icy hell... Two years and a day. Trapped… Worse than Azkaban… He was sure it was not a good place, behind The Veil… He was also pretty certain it was dark. There was something clumsy about the way the people grabbed and bumped against him, that made him certain they also couldn't see what they were touching… Unless it was the cold making them numb? Maybe they couldn't feel properly? Had Sirius even known what he was touching? Yes. Remus was sure he had known. Sirius had snatched his arm and held it, not pulling him in or pushing him away. He had lifted Remus's hand to his face, so he could feel that it was him, when he had struggled against the grip, oblivious… He had felt the scars, that he had to of recognised, and he had interlocked their fingers, just as Tonks had ripped him backwards…

.

He looked round at Tonks, who was now speaking to the healer, about him, as if he wasn't there. He wasn't very there, listening to his worrying wife and a St. Mungo's healer.

.

He needed to get back to the Death Chamber, but Tonks had spoken to her superiors. He wouldn't be able to use her as an excuse to get into the heart of The Ministry. What he needed was Dung. He established he was in the court cells and used his wife's ample finances to pay for his freedom. At some point Tonks was going to find out, but it was worth it. Dung had a 'friend' in the Ministry who, for a small fee, would send them into the building as Service Maintenance Wizards. A job title that took them directly to the Death Chamber, unchallenged.

.

"I figure he's not always there." Dung said, producing a bottle he'd smuggled in in one of his many pockets. "You're probably wasting your time and money… Your missus's money." He watched Remus kneeling in front of The Veil for a moment, before taking a deep breath and feeling into the coldness.

.

It stung. The healer had sorted out the circulation and the cold made his hand ache painfully. There was a lot of nothingness, and then a person that wasn't Sirius. Or anyone he recognised. An old man, he suspected. He didn't reach for Remus. Maybe he was dead.

.

"He won't be there." Dung said, behind his back. "He came last time, cause of the date."

"How is he going to know the date?" Remus hissed, bumping into the old man's shoulder again, and then groping a lot of burningly cold but empty air.

"Well that pretty much proves that it's not all darkness, doesn't it." Dung pointed out. "I've come a couple of times. He was there on the 18th of June, like he thought someone might be looking for him then. Maybe it's a nice place with calendars and a whole world of nice stuff."

"It's black." Remus hissed. "They can't see…" He reached into more nothingness. "There's nothing there. Not even clothes."

"That's almost worth shoving me hand into the cold for." Dung said, with a chuckle. "He knew the date, so he's somewhere he can see the sun and the days passing. He came because it was a year to the day he died."

"Last year?" Remus hissed, pulling his hand back in frustration, and tucking it under his other arm, beneath his robes, to try and warm it up.

"Yeah." Dung nodded, solemnly. "I told you, Lupin. I had his hand."  
"How did you know it was him?" Remus asked. The circulation was returning, more painfully than it had went.

"I could feel his face." Dung said. "And his hair was knotty."

.

"…Are you sure?" Remus said, finally.

"Yeah." Dung frowned at him. "I thought you said you found him in there yesterday. He probably got the day wrong. It's probably easy to be one day out when you're through there."

"There's nothing in there." Remus said. "Just people…" He thrust his other arm back into the cold, catching his lip as he bit his teeth together sharply. "…Just people …and blackness." He said. "If… He was here, because he's here, all the time…" He caught a tangle of hair, gripping it as his other hand dived through to feel a face, that was not Sirius. He thrust the head away from him, hitting into it again as he felt about, speeding up his search as the pain from the cold increased.

.

"…Someone in my way." He hissed, angrily, shoving the head again.

"Yeah, probably his new best mate." Dung said, watching him. "Ol' Sirius is probably trying to explain why you keep shoving him in the face."

"It's a woman." Remus hissed. Dung laughed.

"You're such a nice fella'." He scoffed.

.

"It's too…" He bit back a swear word, tucking his hands again beneath his robes. "…It's too cold." He said, calmly.

"Fine. I'll have a go." Dung said. "Might get a grope of that bird you were beating up, anyway. Was she naked and all?" Remus ignored him, grinding his teeth and trying to rub the circulation painfully back into his hands. He stopped, to watch, as Dung poked his hands through.

.

"…Right." He said. "I can feel that bird." His eyes wandered gazing unfocused as he moved his hands. "It's a girl… I can feel her fingers... She's got nails... I can feel her face, an her hair, she's got no proper hair, it's all cut off."

"That's the girl that prised that hands off me wrist." Remus exclaimed. "Her hair's cropped short?"

"She's feeling the back of my hand, my knuckles." Dung said, focused intently on the sensation. "…Bloody creepy." He added. "Go find Sirius, ya dozy bint!" He added, and forced a laugh.

.

"Let me." Remus knelt down, pressing against Dung's coat and feeling down Dung's hairy arm until he found the female hands, examining his fingers. Ignoring the cold he closed his eyes, feeling the girl's fingers moving across to examine his knuckles, carefully tracing over the scars, again and again. Like Sirius had, she interlocked their fingers, pressing her small delicate hand against his own.

.

"You alright?" Dung asked, rubbing his now withdrawn hands and gulping Firewhiskey.

"She's holding my hand." Remus said. "It's a girl."

"Try and get her out." Dung suggested.

"What?" Remus asked, losing his focus on the girls tickling touch.

"Try and get her out." Dung said. "Might as well."

"What?" Remus said, but he was taking the girls slender wrist in his other hand, closing his fingers to keep their hands interlocked, he pulled his arm back, drawing her closer to The Veil.

.

As if she suddenly realised what he was doing, her other hand jumped up, frantically trying to break his grip, and a moment later, Remus had pulled a small pale hand through The Veil.

.

"No bleeding way." Dung stated, in awe. Keeping a tight grip, Remus backed up and pulled the arm further through The Veil, before reaching back inside, searching for the other hand, which pushed him away, clearly still struggling in alarm. His hand grazed her face, mouth moving, shouting maybe, and then he heaved her through The Veil and out onto the dais.

.

The room was perfectly still and silent. The girl with the cropped hair struggled no more. She did not stare around in shock, at the room and the two men, she did not attack them, or turn out to be some sort of deamon creature. She was just a girl, lying perfectly still and very _very_ dead.

Ch.4

Neither Remus nor Dung spoke. The horror was palpable in the air. Eventually Dung took another mouthful of Firewhiskey. "…You didn't know that was going to happen." He pointed out. The girls dead eyes stared up at the chambers high roof. She was so dead. She was small and young… and dead. Remus covered his mouth, sinking back down onto his knees and feeling over her cold neck for a pulse. His hands hovered over her bare chest, where he knew he should be trying to resuscitate her. Dung pulled out his wand and cast 'Anapneo' but the life's-breath spell did nothing, there was no pulse, there was so obviously no life in her at all, and Remus did not put his hands down on her cold naked chest and go through the motions of trying to resuscitate the corpse. Instead he covered his face for a moment, before taking one of her small cold hands and whispering the words of the 'Last Promise' the poem that was read at ever wizard funeral.

.

"You could try shoving her back in?" Dung suggested. "She was alive when she was in there."

"I killed her, pulling her through." Remus whispered.

"I know." Dung assured him. "I'm just saying, maybe she'll be alright again, if you shove her back through. And if you don't… You're going to have to think of something else to do with a human corpse."

"…I didn't know." Remus whispered, gazing down at the pale cheeks, brown eyes staring up at the ceiling, the short cropped brown hair.

"Funny bruises." Dung said, looking at her as well. A moment later he knelt down beside Remus and used his tobacco stained fingers to closed the girls eyes. "Lupin." He said. "Help me get her back through The Veil. Come on, Remus, we can't get caught with a dead body."

.

Remus watched Dung's hands fix around the girls bare shoulders and shove her, feet first, back at the veil. The tips of her dead toes slid under, not through, it. Her floppy muscles made her body scrunch up, rather than move forward. Cursing, Dung stooped down and with a grimace, he slung one of the floppy arms over his shoulder and heaved her up into his arms. For a moment he held her, like a groom about to carry his bride across the threshold. Instead Dung twisted to get some momentum and flung the limp body straight at The Veil.

.

Nothing hit the floor on the far side. The Veil fluttered and settled back into place, the room fell silent, the body gone silently back where it had come from.

.

"…She might be alright again now." Dung said, finally. "…You didn't mean to kill her." He added. "...And if you hadn't done it to her… You'd have done it to Sirius." He took another long drink of Firewhiskey. "…Don't know how you get through life without drinking." He observed. "Can we go now?"

"Yes." Remus pulled himself back to his feet and followed Dung numbly back to the surface.

.

Back at The Veil at midnight, Remus very nearly fell through as he sunk down in front of it. He was very drunk now, but he didn't feel any better. He just felt dizzy and unable to balance.

.

He put his hand through The Veil, exclaiming in surprise at the drop in temperature. With an arm around the crumbling archway, he felt as deep as he could into the sea of cold limbs pressing and moving about on the far side of the arch. Eyes closed it seemed much easier to search. He felt slightly sleepy from the sheer amount of alcohol and his hand moved steadily from one face to the next, forcing them away once he was satisfied they weren't Sirius; shaking off anything that tried to grab him; shoving his other hand through to prise off anything that he couldn't pull free from.

.

He had to swap hands when he found Sirius, because his fingers were too numb to feel properly. But he was sure it was Sirius. He rested his head against the pilar of crumbling stone, using his less numb hand to feel Sirius's face, and hands.

.

He had found Sirius. Eyes closed, resting against the pilar, Remus stroked Sirius's matted hair, running his hands over the familiar face. He could feel Sirius's lips quirking into a smile and pressing a kiss to the tips of his fingers. Sirius's hands were both holding his. He came close against the other side of The Veil. The archway was mirrored in the darkness. Remus could feel the back of his forearm brushing against the same chalky mortar, and crumbling stone. He put his numb arm around Sirus's shoulders and, eyes closed, used his other hand over and over his face. Sirius' hand move over the length of his arm, carefully examining the old scars that laced it's surface.

.

It was completely silent when Remus woke. His arm felt very heavy. He thought about Sirius, alive and touchable, on the far side of The Veil. His arm had been in the cold of The Veil's for an unknowable time. It was impossibly heavy, but it was not entirely numb. The wall of the other arch scraped against his forearm again and he realised that something was touching his fingers. He left his arm still, for a moment, he couldn't feel if it was Sirius through the numbness. He thought Sirius was lifting his hand up and trying to uncurl his fingers.

.

A moment later he felt something hard in his palm, and realised that Sirius had given him something. He withdrew his hand at once, opening fingers, which Sirius had curled closed a moment before, to find… nothing. Nothing had come back through The Veil. Just as nothing but living tissue had passed into The Veil, whatever Sirius had put in his hand had vanished.

He went back to St. Mungo's alone, claiming he'd been hit with a freezing hex. He was still, undeniably, very drunk. It was one thirty. He'd still been on his way to The Ministry when the clock had struck twelve, so he had not slept for hours with his hand in The Veil, only dozed off for a moment.

.

His arm was still bone white, cold and numb. His fingertips were black and two healers, grim-faced, were working on them with glowing wands. On the plus side, the deadness of his fingers meant there was no pain at all.

.

He felt very sad. He wanted to put his hands back into The Veil, but it was too cold. He wanted to go into The Veil but… He couldn't. He couldn't remember why, but there was a very good reason. He was just too drunk to remember it.

.

He spent the following day asleep, in a court holding cell. This was, he remembered when he finally woke up, because he had gone directly from St. Mungo's back to The Ministry. No, not directly, he had stopped to buy more Firewhiskey. The heat of the drink, he had honestly thought, might counteract the coldness of The Veil. In retrospect, this seemed unlikely. It retrospect, going back to The Ministry, blind drunk, in the middle of the night, seemed like a bad idea. But at the time it had seemed vital, and that was why he was now in a cell, with a hangover from hell, and an awful lot of explaining to do.

.

Presumably Tonks had asked to be informed when he woke up as she arrived while he was trying to go back to sleep, looking venomous. She informed him she was on a twelve hour shift and would _not_ be arranging his release until she had finished. Remus thanked her and went back to sleep. This was not the response she was looking for, as she proceeded to wake him up repeatedly, until she got called back to her office.

.

They went home in silence, which suited Remus well. He hadn't eaten in more than twenty four hours, nor drunk anything that couldn't be ignited. So, ignoring the death glares, he ate anything that looked like it could be eaten without preparation, washed, shaved and sat down with a pile of un-translated books, parchment, and a mug of strong tea.

.

He still felt exhausted, and frustrated. Sirius and James had both been taught Latin, Greek and Ancient Runes from earliest childhood; so they had always done the leg work with translations, and Remus was struggling. It would take years to decipher even one of these massive books, and he didn't even know if any of them were relevant to The Veil.

.

Tonks sat down opposite him, demandingly. Remus ignored her. "We need to talk." She said.

"Fine. Give me five minutes." He snapped. Tonks did. Five _exact_ minutes, before she sat down again. She was not a patient person, at the best of times.

"That was five minutes." She told him.

"'Five minutes' is an expression that adults use, to _politely_ ask for a short amount of time, to finish what they are doing." Remus said, without lifting his head. "When _childish_ people _demand_ their immediate attention, because young people think the world revolves around them."

.

Tonks picked up the book and threw it across the room. "I really wish I'd never married you." Remus told her, calmly. He picked up his wand and summoned the book back to the table, trying to find his place.

.

A little while later Tonks came back. She had her jacket on, and a bag. "Wish granted." She told him. "It's my flat, Remus, but as you have absolutely no where to go you can stay here, for now. If you need to contact me I will be with my parents. If you don't contact me I will send you an owl when your child is born with the relevant details."

"_You are the most childish person I have ever met_!" Remus pushed the book angrily away and forced himself to stand up.

"_Childish_!" Tonks squawked. "_I am not the one drunkenly breaking and entering in my wife's work place! I am not the one toying with suicide! I thought you were amazing, Remus Lupin, but you're not! You're selfish and_ _unpleasant! You're a hundred times more childish than I am! Grow up! And get a job!"_

_._

After she'd gone Remus started again to try and translate the impossible tome, until his eyes ached with the tiny hand scribed runes. He took a break, using it to put wards around the flat, so that Tonks couldn't re-enter it, and then sent an owl to Mundungus, asking him to come over. He enclosed a twist of paper, filled with floo-powder, on the assumption that if Mundungs had owned any, he would have swapped it for Firewhiskey.

.

Mundungus couldn't read ancient runes. His presence was even more disruptive than Tonks'. He fidgeted constantly, asked questions, and then got drunk and nosed through his wife's possessions.

.

The following morning there was an owl. It was from his wife. It said she was as work but that she had left files, which she needed and she had found her flat to be warded against her. She would be in trouble at work, if she didn't have them, and asked if he could bring them to the main desk.

.

Considering the circumstances it was a very polite letter. Remus started to search the flat for the documents. He found other things. Tissues at his wife's dressing table, smeared with mascara tears. And, in the kitchen, a cold dinner laid out on the small table, for the two of them to eat. A meal she must have cooked without him even noticing. A meal she had cooked, after a twelve hour shift, pregnant and worried out of her mind about him.

.

He found the file eventually and took it to the front desk in The Ministry for Magic building. He asked if he could speak to his wife, but Tonks sent back one of the trainee Aurors to tell him she was too busy. So Remus wrote her a letter, apologising for everything and asking her to please meet him or to at least get in contact.

.

Ch.6

"Bones!" Dung exclaimed, sitting up on the sofa. He'd spilt red wine down the side of it. Remus was a terrible husband. Tonks hated Mundungus. This was all so wrong. "Bones." Dung said again. "That's what that was." And he feigned punching the air in front of him. Remus carried on trying to translate the runes. Trying not to listen to Dung belching and urinating with the door open and generally making himself far too 'at home'. Remus was making no headway with the runes. There was too much in his brain already. The thought of Sirius, alive, felt only by his frozen fingers, and his young pregnant wife, rightfully hurt and going back to her parents, and the impossible books that probably held no secrets about The Veil anyway, and realistically, how long did he plan on sitting here, translating them, half a page a day. "Bones!" Mundungus called again from the bathroom. Grimacing, Remus got up and closed the door on him.

.

"Want some help?" Dung asked, eating off one of the cold plates Tonks had left on the table.

"I didn't realise you could translate Ancient Runes." Remus said, trying to find the place he had, again, just lost.

"You're a sarcastic bugger." Dung chuckled. "Do yer want me help, or not?"

"I doubt it." Remus said, softly. "But please, feel free." He pushed a pile of dusty books across the table. Dung sat down next to him, took Remus's parchment of half translated text and drew a crude picture of a hairy man smashing spiky cymbals above his head.

.

"It's a monkey." Dung added, when Remus gave this observation. "The golden monkey smashing two hedgehogs into one. It's the crest of the Nobel and Illustrious Bones family. Call yourself educated, Lupin?"

"Clearly there are gaps in my education." Remus said, drily. "Was it relevant?"

"It was on 'er. On the naked girl. The dead one. She had a funny bruise, on her belly. It were the Bone's insignia, bout that big." He made a circle with the fingers of both hands, although Remus did remember the circular bruising.

.

He had been slightly blinded by the horrific consequences of his own actions, but he had seen the bruise. He had thought it looked vaguely like the moon. Perfectly circular, blotches of purple and white. Apparently to Dung it had looked like a golden monkey, smashing two hedgehogs together.

.

"Maybe y'er looking at the wrong books?" Dung suggested. "Maybe yer should be lookin' at the Bones family records?"

"Yes. Maybe." Remus said. "Anyway, my wife is coming back after work, so maybe you should go away, before she arrives?"

.

Dung left, grumbling, but hurriedly. Remus used his wand to remove the golden monkey from his parchment and tried to carry on translating. Tonks was not coming back. She would hopefully write to him and agree to meet. He needed to apologise, _a lot_. He needed to explain about The Veil, and that knowing Sirius was alive within it, was such an astonishing discovery, that it had made him a little crazy and very, very, inconsiderate. But that he was sorry. And he would make up for it.

.

Unable to focus properly on the translation, which wasn't even about The Veil, he lay on the sofa, thinking about Sirius. He fetched the clothes that Tonks had retrieved for him and held them over his face, lying curled into the sofa, so the empty flat and the glaring midday sun was gone, and everything was quiet and black. The clothes still smelt like Sirius.

.

Dung shook him awake, offering him Firewhiskey, which Remus accepted gratefully, and a parchment, which he unrolled.

.

"Lucille Bones." Dung said. "Died 'undreds of years ago."

"1522." Remus said, as he had the parchment in his hands.

"A statue toppled on 'er." Dung said, as Remus read it, struggling with the old-fashioned script. "A statue on a plinth that 'ad the family crest on it, which '_whack!'_ punched into her belly!" Dung demonstrated with his fist and palm.

"It just say's a statue." Remus informed him.

"So?" Dung said. "She were just fifteen."

"Seventeen." Remus corrected.

"Sorry, Lupin. Didn't know it were your research." Dung said, amused.

"She was seventeen." Remus said. "She was born in May 1504. It

only says that she died in her own home, when a statue fell on her."

"That's not all it says though, is it?" Dung said, gesturing at the bottom of the parchment. "Somewhere there, it says they put her through The Veil."

"No, it doesn't." Remus said. "It says that she was pronounced dead by a Healer of St. Mungo's, and the grooms family paid one hundred galleons to have her body placed in the Chamber of the Dead."

"_The Death Chamber_." Dung said. "I'n'it?"

"That we don't know." Remus said. "I don't…" He read through it again, and then he whistled his owl and wrote quickly to Erica Bones, the last of the three Bones siblings still living.

.

Remus had been at school with Erica, Edgar and Amelia Bones, and taught Erica's daughter Susan. He'd last seen Erica at Amelia's funeral and they'd barely spoke, but she arrived at the flat that evening, with a bottle of wine and a vast catalogue of parchments and family history.

.

By morning Remus had clarified many things, not least that Erica Bones had been harbouring a decade old crush on him. The plus side of this was that he had established beyond doubt that Lucille Bones had not died in 1522. No, he had personally murdered her, by dragging her out of The Veil, three days ago.

.

He had an ancient painting of the young girl, in which she'd had long brown hair; but Erica had also brought over an old family diary that had recorded that Lucille, forced to marry against her wishes, had cut off all her hair and killed herself, by pulling a stone bust of her grandfather on top of her. She was, Remus was certain, the girl he had pulled out of The Veil. That meant, if that could really be correct, that she had been trapped inside The Veil for more than four hundred years, apparently without growing old of dying. Four hundred years. How long did you last in The Veil? Was it meant to be a torture, a punishment, surely not an act of kindness?

.

Ch.7

He paid Dung's friend again to get into the Death Chamber, braced himself for the icy cold and thrust his left hand inside, starting his search. Sirius was there. Waiting. Immediately, he caught Remus's hand, holding his wrist and guiding Remus's fingers to his face, so he could feel Sirius's kiss, his smile, his lips shaping words Remus couldn't understand.

.

He was so unprepared for this that he practically broke down. He'd thought it might take many days to find Sirius again. But Sirius had been waiting here, presumably since Remus had left, two days ago.

.

Trying to gesture for Sirius to wait, Remus withdrew his arm, took the knife from his pocket and cut down into his barely dumb skin.

.

_R U OK_

.

Dripping blood, he thrust his arm back through The Veil, using his other hand to guide Sirius's fingers to the open skin. Cold lips pressed against the stinging cuts, kissing over and over them, so that Remus had to push him back, making Sirius use his fingers to feel the four letters, over and over, praying that he would be able to pick them out and understand them.

.

For a moment he took his arms back, holding them beneath his robes to try and get warm again, before pushing them again through to Sirius.

.

He pressed his forearm against Sirius's mouth, trying to get him to make marks with his teeth, because he didn't think there was much inside The Veil, to carve into flesh with, and he could see no other way to communicate. He thought Sirius understood well enough, but wouldn't do it, only kissing him with icy lips.

.

Remus made him feel the letters again, then put his hand against Sirius's cheek and jaw so he could feel if he shook his head, or nodded.

.

What he could feel, with numb hands, and nothing else to go on, was what Sirius was trying _not_ to say; because he was Sirius who Remus knew as well as himself. And so Remus knew the answer already. If Sirius would rather pretend he didn't understand a message Remus had carved into his own arm, than admit the truth then this was really bad.

.

And then he felt Sirius _actually_ shake his head, just for a second. No, he was not alright. As Remus grappled with this, Sirius held his wrists, trying to convey more by something of a shrug and icy kisses against his wrist and bloody arm.

.

The cold was unbarable. Remus's hands were both pressed gently against Sirius's face. He could feel the brush of Sirius's eyelashes as he blinked and with all his heart he wanted to step into the blackness and hold him again. But he couldn't, because he had to get Sirius out. He had to get him back, without killing him, and he couldn't do that if he just crawled into the blackness.

.

Sirius didn't release his hands easily. Remus had to pull them free. He sat on the dais, warming his hands beneath his robes, although he was pretty certain he was going to have to return to St. Mungo's again. It seemed like the least of his problems. For the moment he just wanted to rest against the crumbly stone archway, imagining that Sirius was waiting on the far side of it, confident in the knowledge that Remus would come back again.

.

His hands and arms were still agonising, and scarlet again, which meant the circulation was returning, so he wouldn't have to go to St. Mungo's. Maybe, if he could wait here a little longer, he would be able to put them briefly through The Veil again. It wasn't like anyone had ever come into the Death Chamber, even when he or Tonk's had been shouting down here. It was getting in and out of The Ministry that was hard.

.

Next time he came, he decided, he would bring food and drink, and stay for as long as possible. And he would cast a spell on his hands to try to make them numb to the pain, without making them numb to Sirius' cold touch. Today he would just wait it out, get some sleep, maybe, and then he would find Sirius again, before he went.

.

Choosing a stone bench as obscured from the door as possible, he closed his eyes and went to sleep, on the cold uncomfortable bed, his eyes on the fluttering veil.

.

The cold woke him and he realised he was looking side-on, at The Veil, up on its dais, and an Unspeakable was kneeling at the archway. Remus watched her for a moment. She was reading a parchment, and they eye's suddenly met over it.

.

Remus got up at once. The Unspeakable jumped back to her feet looking alarmed rather than shocked. "I can explain!" She said, at once. "…I'm mad!" She added. "I was sleep-walking! …Professor Lupin?"

.

Remus started, not having expected that at all. "Fay." He said, recognising the girl now. She was in Harry's year, a Gryffindor. "Fay Dunbar."

"Yes, Sir." She hung her head, mortified.

"What are you doing here?" Remus asked, trying to look a bit more professor-ish, and less like he hadn't changed his clothes or brushed his hair for an unknowable number of days. "…Assuming you're not actually a mad sleepwalker."

"No, sir." Fay admitted, eyes still studying her feet. "It's The Veil, sir. I'm sort of studying it."

"For a school project?" Remus suggested. "You are meant to be at school."

"I'm still at school, sir." Fay assured him, at once. "I'm pureblood. I'm staying with my uncle over Christmas… I'm not actually meant to be here, sir. They …they can Crucio you, at school, the Carrows, they… I was about to go and if… Sir, please don't tell anyone, _please_."

.

"So." Remus said, trying to see what she'd written on the parchment. "Assuming I don't actually know that you're not meant to be here, maybe you should explain a little bit about your 'project'."

"…Thank you, sir." Fay whispered. "It's… It's not really for school."

"I gathered that. Care to explain." He suggested. Fay glanced up at him, nervously, before walking over to the stone benches that encircled the dais and sat down beside him.

.

"Everyone had to prove their blood status to go back to school this year." She explained, quickly. "So we had all the family history out. I found some information about that arch. It's not really a curtain."

"What did your research suggest it was?" Remus asked.

"A doorway. In the past they put dead people inside it but they're not allowed to anymore."

"I'm impressed." Remus said, evenly. "Anything else?" Fay looked up at him, cautiously.

"Yes, sir." She said. "Am I going to get in trouble?"  
"Not remotely." Remus assured her. "I'm not supposed to be here, either."

"You're not?" Fay's eyes rose up into her thick fringe and she giggled. "Oh good, professor." She said. "Did you already know it was a doorway?"

"Yes." Remus glanced at the arch again. "A friend of mine fell through it."

"What!?" Fay dropped all her parchments and they both picked them up.

.

"I'm very sorry, sir." She said, finally. "You can put your hands through it, you know?"

"Yes, I do know. I am about to."

"I've never seen anybody else do it." Fay said, following him back to the dais. "It's very cold, isn't it? I have a timer." Which she produced, from her pocket.

"That's very sensible." Remus said.

"If you take your hands out every time the sand runs out, and keep them out for the same amount of time, you can keep doing it. It hurts a bit though. I'm trying to work out how many people are in there." She added. "And maybe who they are."

.

She passed Remus a sheet of parchment, flipped over the egg timer, and pushed her hand through The Veil, feeling about. Remus watched her for a moment, before reading the list of people she had felt inside. Scanning it really for Sirius, which wasn't hard; although it was strange to read her description of him. Fay had observed five distinct people within the veil. Sirius (a tall thin man with an angular jaw and cheekbones, and long matted hair). Also the teenage girl with cropped hair, who Remus had murdered (my age, friendly), an old man (seldom moves) and two people who she'd named Elise and The Big Man.

.

"Elise is my great grandmother's big sister." Fay told him, taking her hands out and rubbing them vigorously with a greasy potion as the sand trickled back up into the top of the timer. "My family paid a hundred galleons to have her put in The Veil."

"Why?" Remus asked.

"I don't know." Fay admitted. "She doesn't know."

"How do you know she doesn't know?" Remus asked, wondering what potion she was using, to restore the circulation in her hands.

"She was deaf. It runs in my family. My brother's deaf as well. My great _great_ grandmother, Elise's mother, used to come here to talk to her, using sign language. Elise was twenty three when she was put in The Veil, and my great grandmother, her sister, visited her until she was an old lady and The Ministry banned it. But, sir, she said that Elise never got any older. She was still the same, even when her little sister was an old lady. And so I thought, what if she was still here? And she is."

"How do you know?" Remus asked. The timer had refilled and Fay put her hands back in The Veil.

"It's very cold." She gasped. "…I'm talking to her with sign language. It's really hard. But I'm sure it's her… I haven't found her yet."

"The man with the matted hair is my friend." Remus said, calmly. "He was there earlier."

"Yes, he's here now." Fay said, at once. He is resting against the other side of the arch, sir. If you rub that potion on your arms, the cold is a little less painful."

"Thank you." Remus did so, waiting until Fay removed her arms for another break before reaching in and catching Sirius's hand.

.

It was lovely. The potion did help with the cold and he could actually feel Sirius's surprise. Presumably he had expected another wait of many days before he returned. He let Sirius interlink their fingers and kiss his knuckles, carefully feeling the raw cuts on his arm.

.

"Have you found him, sir?" Fay asked, kneeling next to him expectantly. Sirius was kissing his cuts.

"Yes. Where you said." Remus said, without looking at her. "And the potion does help."

"You have to put it on when you take your hands out. It stings a bit. Can you feel if Elise is there, sir? She's got long hair and she's a bit… naked."

"Yeah." Remus said. "I don't think there's anyone else here." Although he would need to let go of Sirius to establish that, and that was something he wasn't willing to do. Removing his hand from Sirius's, he touched by his eye, where his heart lay beneath his chest, and then poked him, pondering if that crude sign language for 'I love you' was easy enough to follow. It was. He could feel Sirius's lips curling into a laugh, beneath his fingers, before he jabbed a finger into Remus's palm and pressed two icy fingers against his, to sign 'you too'.

.

"You should take your hands out, sir." Fay nudged him, awkwardly. "Otherwise you'll get too cold." Remus nodded, easing Sirius off him. He took his hands out and rubbed more of the greasy potion onto his cold hands. It did sting and it felt hot, after the icy coldness.

.

"I can feel your friend, sir." Fay told him, smiling in amusement. "He must have thought I was you. He snatched my hands up quick enough then dropped them in surprise. I can feel his face." Remus wished he could. He carried on rubbing the circulation back into his hands, watching her. "He is holding my hand." She added. "I think he wants to know if you are still here. I am signing yes. Do you think he'll understand?"

"How do you sign 'yes'?" Remus asked.

"Make a fist and nod it… He's feeling my fist. He is saying two. He is definitely asking if you are with me... Now he is signing 'dog'!" She added, with a laugh.

"'Signing' dog?" Remus asked, baffled.

"Yes." Fay assured him. "I am asking him if he knows sign language."

"I'm sure he doesn't." Remus said. "Timer is finished." He passed her the jar and took Sirius's hands off her, letting Sirius kiss his knuckles.

"What is he doing?" Fay asked.

"Just holding my hands." Remus lied, brushing Sirius's lips with his fingertips. "He was my best friend."

"He still is, sir." Fay pointed out.

"Yes." Remus nodded. Sirius carried on kissing his fingers. Remus stroked his cheeks,

"…You should take your hands out again, sir." Fay reminded him, putting hers back through the Veil and following his arm. Sirius kept a hold of his hand, while he examined the other hand. "I think he is trying to work out who I am." Fay said. "You have to take your hand out, sir, or they'll get too cold."

.

Reluctantly, Remus did. Sirius moved his hand away and Fay moved hers in front of him. "He is signing 'dog' again." She said, at once.

"That is probably the only word he knows." Remus said, although he couldn't think why Sirius would even know that.

"He is saying 'dog' and either 'flashing' or 'star'." Fay told him. "He is saying dog and flashing… That's his name. He's asking me what my name is."  
"How?" Remus asked. "And yes, it is. He's named after the dog-star, 'Sirius'."

"He signs it, then points at his chest. Then he points back at my palm. I am signing the letters of my name, but he doesn't understand. He is shrugging… And now he appears to be gesturing… gesturing… Chest, sir." She muttered. "Girls chest. Oh! I think he is asking if I am female."

"I think he's asking if you are his cousin." Remus told her. "She works in the Ministry and it's quite likely she would have helped me get here."

"You get all that from 'boobs' sir?" Fay asked him, blushing.

"Yes." Remus said, faintly amused. "Tonks. Tell him 'no', you're not her."

.

"I am saying you said 'no'. I think he has put his hand against the other side of The Veil, in front of you." Remus pushed his hand through, finding this was so, Sirius had his palm flat against the other side of The Veil. "But you should wait for the Timer, sir." Fay added. "And keep rubbing in the frost-bite ointment… I'm very sorry your friend fell through The Veil, sir."

.

Sirius was trying to gesture a lot now. Remus didn't know what. The cold was getting more painful. "…Elise is there." Fay said, moving away from him. "I am telling her that you are here."

"Good." Remus said, closing his eyes and trying to think what Sirius might be gesturing. Three something. People, he supposed.

.

"…She knows who you are." Fay interrupted. "The scars on your hands. She's saying you pulled her hair and shoved her in the face, sir."

"Do you know how to tell her sorry?" Remus asked. "I was looking for Sirius. I didn't mean to hurt her. I was just trying to be efficient with my time…" He drew his fingers out and put more ointment on. "I am sorry." He added.

.

"…She says it's okay." Fay told him, taking her hands out as well and restarting the timer before massaging her hands again.

"That's very nice of her." Remus said. "I was rather desperate and thoughtless. If it's not too hard, could you ask her what is there, on the other side."

"I have." Fay said. "She said it's dark and not very big and there are three doors. This one, one in the ceiling, and one at the side that lets in a little daylight."

"Daylight?" Remus asked, at once.

"Yes." Fay said. "But it's on a level with this doorway, so it must be somewhere else. She says it looks hot. A bright sun and sand maybe."

"She can sign all that to you?" Remus asked. "Can she talk to Sirius?"

"I don't know. I'll ask her." She glanced at the timer again, which had nearly refilled.

"And ask her if they can feel the cold."

"No. She said it's alright. She said my hands are hot. That it hurts to touch them."

"We feel hot to them?" Remus asked. "Painfully so?"

"Yes, sir." Fay said. "But I don't think they mind. Elise doesn't. She wants to communicate."

"Ask her, please." Remus told her, seeing the timer had finished. "If she can speak to him." He put his hands back into the cold, taking Sirius's hands, trying not to imagine that they felt painfully hot to him. He let Sirius kiss his fingers again, sure he wouldn't do that if it was really burning his lips. Maybe he would. Trapped in a dark cell for two years.

.

"She says 'yes'." Fay told him. "She says it's hard to talk. Its loud."

"Tell her to tell Sirius I'll keep trying to get him out."

"…He says he loves you." Fay told him. "Or he likes you very much."

"That's what he said?" Remus asked. He was still holding one of Sirius's hands, it was freezing and painful, and he could tell that Sirius's attention was with Elise, behind The Veil.

"Yes. He said you should try and pull him through The Veil. Do you think that's possible."

"No. It's not." Remus said. "Tell him I can't. That it will kill him."

.

"…Elise said other people have been pulled out. She thinks it will kill him. _Shit that's cold!_ Sorry sir." She rubbed her red hands vigorously. "It really hurts now."

"Give yourself a minute." Remus suggested. He wondered if holding his hand, hurt Sirius as much as it was now hurting him. He was going to have to let go because it was freezing.

.

"Right." Fay said. "Last time I think. I am telling Elise to talk to him. To say the… people… died."

"He knows." Remus said, feeling Sirius's face with his numb fingers.

"And he still wants you to pull him out, sir?" Sirius was nodding beneath his fingers. Remus had thought he would.

"Can you get her to tell him…" He said, calmly. "I will. I promise I will, if I can't find a way to help him."

"Are you sure, sir?" Fay said. She turned back to The Veil, moving her hands inside it, letting Elise feel her signing.

"She says 'yes', she understands." Fay told him, sadly. "She said he's black and other black wizards will help you. She died a long time ago."

"He's a Black." Remus said. "And the entire family has died out now. But he knows that. Tell him I will find a way to help him. I'll try to find out about the other doorways."


End file.
